ABSTRACT
This chapter examines issues pertaining to the rights of Malay Muslim minorities by focusing on the present-day rights of the Malay Muslims of Thailand as seen from the peoples' perspective. The primordial community rights, which included both tangible and intangible rights, were central to the identity and history of the Malay community of the Patani region and therefore considered almost ‘sacred and inalienable’. The need to defend these ‘community’ rights against the conqueror (Bangkok) became a prime factor for the subsequent decades of conflict and confrontation between the Thai state and the Malay Muslim minorities of south Thailand. In the tin-rich south Thailand, with the advent of Chinese and western mining companies, the Thai state was forced to adopt modern methods of guarding its resource-rich areas. In the case of the renewed conflict in south Thailand since 2004, an apparent lack of justice for human rights abuses has turned into a major source of grievance.
